The green shoot hunt turns to the unemployment figures

update:the TUC is now the lead comment on the BBC piece mentioned below. I – of course – withdraw any hint of criticism of the wonderful BEEB who should be allowed to keep all the license fee. But there is still a serious point to be made about city experts.

I’ll leave my expert colleagues to trawl over the unemployment figures in detail, but it’s hard to see the highest youth unemployment figures for 15 years as good news.

Yet the media is now on relentless green shoot hunt. It’s disappointing to see even the BBC treating the jobless figures in this way, with no quotes from anyone who works with or represents the unemployed – and instead quotes from two city economists and the Chambers of Commerce (though there’s nothing much wrong with their take).

Of course it’s right to look at detailed economic statistics, but as Brendan argued earlier this week there are strong vested interests talking up a recovery that is extremely remote for all the people who make up today’s jobless figures. Some people are very keen to get back to the days when they could easily argue that unemployment was the fault of the unemployed, easily fixed with a short sharp dose of workfare.

Written by Nigel Stanley

I was the TUC’s Head of Campaigns and Communications until semi-retiring in May 2015, I started at the TUC in 1994.

My interests cover a wide range of communications and politics related issues, but if I have a specialist subject, itR…

One Response to The green shoot hunt turns to the unemployment figures

Quite clearly, the financial elite are trying to stop any reform of the regulatory bodies – which failed completely to tackle the shadow banking system.

Brendan made a very good point about the direction of our economy – our future is in green industries, not in greed. But we’ve got a big struggle ahead of us – in this country, those with the wealth will not invest in well-paid green-collar jobs in the UK when the profits are higher overseas.